Finding
by Amanda Lord
Summary: They are unique. They were placed into this world, instead of inhabiting time and space. It’s three years later and Connor is trying to live in the world that Angel gave him, but something is missing. Fortunately he finds the key he needs.


Explanation: So I was told that the end of this story was anticlimatic. I thought that the end was great. Finally I went to FF.net...looks like the end I wrote was missing the Connor flashbacks...It is all fixed. Enjoy.  
  
Title: Finding Part: 1 Author: Amanda Lord Email: Amanda_Lord@lycos.com Disclaimer: 'Cha do I really have to do this? Goes with out saying, but I have to say it anyways. Not mine. Summary: They are unique. They were placed into this world, instead of inhabiting time and space. It's three years later and Connor is trying to live in the world that Angel gave him, but something is missing. Fortunately he finds the key he needs. Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Everything up until now Feedback: Cause we like to know that you love us - Amanda_Lord@lycos.com A/N: Hmmmm..Interesting. This story is like nothing that I have ever written. I wrote this is a matter of hours. I proof read it. It may not be perfect, but it is damn interesting. I hope that you like it. Please tell me what you think, Dawn and Conner aren't my favorite characters, nor have I ever written a story about them, but it seemed to fit at the time.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* I have never felt normal or natural.  
  
By never I mean three and a half years. All my memories feel normal and full of happiness. I know what it feels like, but I can't seem to feel it anymore.  
  
I'm not empty.  
  
I refuse to believe that nothing can fill up this ache. Nothing can stop the words that I know so well from flowing. Nothing can stop me from being me.  
  
But somewhere along the way I've lost track of it.  
  
I study those around me. Is this the usual college feeling? Cause if it is, then the books are way off.  
  
I just don't seem to feel connected to anything. I'm different and I can't understand it. I can't even imagine how to tell any of them.  
  
So I've taken to walk the streets. While they drink beer and find willing women, I walk the streets.  
  
A little boy from Northern California walking the streets of LA alone.  
  
Stupid.  
  
But I'm not scared. I'm not scared of the streets or what I may find on them.  
  
It feels more like home these days.  
  
One night, a regular night I'm walking down the street and I hear something. Something bad. Something that people would, should run away from.  
  
I run towards it.  
  
I see a brunette fumbling wither her bag while she is approached by a guy with a face that no mother could love. She's fumbling and he's approaching and I run towards her.  
  
I push her out of the way.  
  
She looks up at me. Running at her was not normal, but neither is her reaction..  
  
"I amost had him."  
  
her face is angry and it makes some kind of sense..  
  
In her hand is a sharpened piece of wood. I look at it, then I look at the creature. Suddenly everything is calm. Suddenly I know something. I don't feel anything except this inkling of instinct.  
  
I look at the creature before me. He looks startled. He doesn't like what he sees in my eyes.  
  
He runs.  
  
I grab the piece of wood and I run after him.  
  
//I'm a soccer player. I can run fast//  
  
Never this fast.  
  
I hit him and he goes flying.  
  
//I work out//  
  
I've hit a two hundred pound man and he goes flying like he weighs nothing.  
  
I act and it is something that I just feel. I know how to do this. The stake enters his heart and I fall as he turns to dust.  
  
This is nothing I've ever done before.  
  
//But I can do this//  
  
Nothing has penetrated my heart in years, but this gets to me. It enters me and I throw up. The first thing I feel after the numbness of my life is nausea.  
  
I sit there on the putrid streets and I'm shaking and this girl comes up to me. She doesn't seem fazed, just a little confused, and slightly concerned. The confusion isn't because of the situation, it is because of me, as is the concern.  
  
If I could remember how to stop shaking I think I would have been endeared.  
  
She watches me and studies me and I want to stop shaking. I want to get up from this street. However my body, which just a few seconds ago was completely in control, is now a mess. It doesn't want to listen.  
  
Finally she speaks.  
  
"That isn't your first."  
  
She says it and it is true. It has to be true, because nothing else makes sense.  
  
I start to laugh. I'm laughing so hard that I can't even sit.  
  
Through the laughter I find those words that I can never find.  
  
"Have you ever woke up one morning and felt like everything that you've ever lived is a lie, but it still seems perfectly real, but you know its not?"  
  
I'm hysterical. I'm cracking to pieces.  
  
Then I look up in her eyes. She doesn't say a word. She doesn't have to. It doesn't matter.  
  
I know that she understands. She knows exactly what I'm talking about.  
  
She reaches out a hand and I take it.  
  
Thus far she is acting just the way I need her to act. She is doing everything right and I'm insane.  
  
"Want to go for coffee?"  
  
I hear her voice and it is strangely guarded. It is full of curiosity.  
  
//Coffee, normal people go for coffee//  
  
***  
  
She doesn't say anything, for that I'm grateful. She doesn't take away her hand. For that I'm indebted to her forever.  
  
I have a girlfriend and this isn't cheating, but I shouldn't be doing this for a greater reason. I know that behind her wide blue eyes are the answers and I don't want to hear them. Beyond a shadow of a doubt I know that she holds everything that I need, in so many ways.  
  
Unfortunately all I can do is cling to her hand and attempt not to shake too badly.  
  
"Who are you?" she finally asks.  
  
"College student."  
  
I stare at the coffee that neither one of us will touch. The cups are just pretense not to have to go out on the street again.  
  
She opens her mouth and I have to stop her.  
  
"I'm just a guy, I'm a guy who wakes up from dreams that don't make any sense. Dreams of horror and agony and nothing anyone should ever see. I wake up in cold sweats and see the picture of my family and know that there is no way to know if it is all real. I don't know who they are in those first seconds. I want to run to my father and have him make it all make sense, but my father is a doctor and that isn't who I want. He could never understand."  
  
She watches me and says nothing. That is a blessing. I couldn't stand it if she spoke.  
  
"I'm a guy who dreams of parents who could never be," I look down at my hands, one is still laced with mine. She is still holding me on this plane, "I've committed crimes that are horrible. Why are you sitting here?"  
  
She looks at me with those big blue eyes, "Because I want coffee."  
  
I look at the cups of coffee that are untouched.  
  
I laugh.  
  
It may be the first time in my life that I have laughed. I feel it. It feels good. Suddenly I can feel her hand and it feels good.  
  
She smiles back.  
  
"I only meant your name before. You can save the issues until we know each other better."  
  
It isn't mean, she isn't being mean, she is just trying to make things more normal for me. She's not going anywhere. She feels something here.  
  
I smile and I feel as if I'm doing it for the first time. I feel light behind my eyes and a twitch in my mouth.  
  
"I'm Connor."  
  
I've acted like a raving lunatic, and she hasn't even thought of removing her hand, but suddenly my name sparks something in her eyes.  
  
Maybe she is the insane one.  
  
She almost pulls away. She searched my face and I guess that she sees something.  
  
"You're." she begins her eyes wide her breath coming short.  
  
"Don't," I growl. Who knew I can sound really surly. I have bickered with my sisters, but I can sound downright evil. This doesn't bode well.  
  
She chokes back her knowledge and begins to recede, but I don't let go of her hand. If I let go of her hand then I loose the only person who I want to tell me about me.  
  
But now isn't the time.  
  
I ask her about the man in the alleyway.  
  
She understands.  
  
She tells me.  
  
She tells me everything I need to know right now, and nothing I'm not ready for.  
  
***  
  
My muscles flex and grab the runaway creature.  
  
Vampire, stake in the heart, beheading, holy water, sunlight.  
  
It is mantra that they made up in Hollywood and over the last month it has become my life.  
  
She stands over by the corner and watches me.  
  
She's told me all about slayers. I'm not one, but I don't probe how I can do the things I do. I asked if I was a vampire. She looked up at the sun as we sat on the quad and raised an eyebrow, I knew I wasn't. I also knew that there was something to that question, something that I didn't want to know yet.  
  
She calls herself my watcher. Somehow she knows all these things. She's seen the process. It makes me wonder how she knows all of this. I ask her if she is a Slayer. She shakes her head.  
  
"No my sister is."  
  
She watches over me and I need that. I need that or I'll go insane. She won't tell me before I'm ready, and I need that too. I hate to be away from her. I can't.  
  
Soccer and Leah have all faded away and they mean nothing anymore. I only study because if I don't then my parents will rip me away from this place, from her.  
  
I'm not as good as I should be. I'm clumsy, like something is trying to seal off all of this strength and finesse. I fight through it, but I'm not as good as I know I am.  
  
She is grabbed from behind and she screams.  
  
Her screams shatter me and nothing matters if I can't get to her. Suddenly the calm that has surrounded me this last month dies and I feel fury and this flood of everything.  
  
I kill them, I kill them all.  
  
When the dust settles and they are all gone, she is left, bruised and I fall at her feet, touching her face.  
  
She's hurt because she watches me.  
  
Suddenly I'm shaking. No matter how unreal my life seems to me, I know that I'm not a virgin, but suddenly I'm shaking as if I've never seen a woman before. I'm torn between wanting to drown in her and wanting to run away.  
  
She makes the decision for me.  
  
She pulls me near and kisses me.  
  
***  
  
I nuzzle her neck and purr.  
  
At times I think I'm half animal. We're curled up and naked in her dorm room bed.  
  
She looks at me and waits for something.  
  
"What?"  
  
Now I know that I didn't do anything wrong and I know that she enjoyed it.  
  
"You're staying?"  
  
She asks the most impossible questions.  
  
"Where would I go."  
  
I am actually almost insulted. She plays with her hair and looks uncomfortable. She doesn't know how this is supposed to go.  
  
"Well after my sister's first time the guy did a one eighty."  
  
I want to kick myself, I didn't know that I was her first.  
  
I can only go on and make this better.  
  
"Do I look like that guy?"  
  
I attempt to curl her into me but she is suddenly stiff.  
  
I know that some how I've said the wrong thing. I have the feeling I have the look of the guy who would do some horrible things.  
  
Then my words hit me.  
  
Maybe I do look like that guy.  
  
I don't want to know.  
  
***  
  
After mulling it over for a few days I have to know. I have to be sure.  
  
We're in bed again. We've taken to my mattress like bears to the den. It is our home now.  
  
"Your sister had a bad time with some guy eh?"  
  
She nods in half sleep.  
  
"It was horrible, after they.after the first time he turned evil. I'm talking bottom of the shoe treatment by the man that she used to love. He stalked her it was pretty much a not fun time in all of our lives."  
  
I didn't ask who 'all of our lives' included. I had another reason for asking.  
  
"Is she my mother?"  
  
I really didn't know how to ask. She never told me how old her sister was. It seemed logical. I'm the ill begotten bastard of that union. Sure it doesn't make sense, but there is something there.  
  
She turns over in bed and giggles.  
  
"Ewww, do you think that I would be doing this," then her face gets all serious she pushes back a strand of my hair and I know she is think of her sister and how that related to me. I don't want to know. I'm not ready.  
  
So we have sex again instead.  
  
***  
  
It is later.  
  
I'm thinking.  
  
I'm not a Slayer, being male and all. I'm not the son of a Slayer.  
  
Then it hits me.  
  
I wake her up.  
  
"Is he my father?"  
  
I'm panicking again.  
  
She turns over sleepily and processes the thoughts.  
  
"Oh."  
  
She says it and I know. I know that my heart my father is a seducer of virgins and leaves them. He is a bad man.  
  
She pulls me back.  
  
"He has his problems. He has this weird sense of valiancy and he broods a lot, but he is basically good. He wants to be good."  
  
She yawns and then a memory flashes through her mind.  
  
She smiles.  
  
"I never knew him much when I was a child. He was always just in and out, but he loved my sister. I could hear them talking sometimes at night. I would always know that he had been there because he would leave me chocolate."  
  
She giggled.  
  
"It is a wonder that I'm not fat."  
  
I looked at the slender body and I had to doubt the validity of that statement.  
  
I also was getting slightly aroused, there were no more questions.  
  
I was falling asleep again, basking in the glow of the aftermath when I realized that she had known. She knew me well enough to know that I could only handle so much information.  
  
***  
  
I was swearing and pounding against a wall.  
  
I had just gotten off the phone with my sister and I was completely angry. She wasn't real, she didn't really grow up with me. She was so innocent to the fact that her mind had been totally screwed over.  
  
I was raging.  
  
Which wasn't good for someone who had the strength I did.  
  
I was damaging the wall and my knuckles.  
  
She came in and pulled me away from the wall, she looked at my knuckles.  
  
"I can't do this," I said, on the verge of tears, "I can't be some body who never really existed."  
  
She sat me in the chair and examined my knuckles.  
  
"Did I ever tell you that I didn't exist until seven years ago."  
  
She got up and went to the overused first aid kit.  
  
"I existed for thousand of years as a mystical ball of green energy. I was put into human form because I was the key to another dimension."  
  
That makes not sense. Yet it really did, because she does understand..  
  
She sat before me and rubbed antiseptic over the cuts on my hands.  
  
"I found out that I wasn't real and I tried to kill myself. I was real, I had so many memories, but I didn't exist. They weren't real, I was made up."  
  
She looked up at me and my knuckles didn't hurt anymore, because she was telling me what I had been feeling for years.  
  
She is telling me this because I'm about to go all emotionally comatose again. She knows me well. It is eerie.  
  
"You know what I found out? That I was real, I am real now. I am loved. That is all that matters."  
  
And I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was telling me more than just the story of her life. she was telling me something more important.  
  
I smiled, I had gotten good at feeling good. She had that effect on me.  
  
"You're mystical energy? You open doors, yet you always are locked out of your room? I don't buy it."  
  
I'm teasing her and she teases back.  
  
"Well at least I'm not the son of two vampires," she retorted, and we both knew that wasn't the right thing to say.  
  
I really didn't want her to say that. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to hear something that couldn't be true.  
  
There wasn't any way to take it back. So I know, she told me before I was ready.  
  
So I took hold of her and kissed her before things could get weird, before the words would sink in and the questions would start. I tasted her skin, I made her feel the love that I was beginning to believe that was blooming in me.  
  
***  
  
I sat in front of the mirror.  
  
I have reflection, I can see it clearly even thought it is dark. I don't want to turn on the light and wake her up. Besides I can see in the dark.  
  
My parents are vampires.  
  
My parents are dead, but still walking around and they gave life to me.  
  
She had broken the damn and it was time. I couldn't not know anymore.  
  
"What is she like?"  
  
I asked the question and I didn't turn around. If I looked at her then I would probably get a lie. She didn't move and she didn't want to look at me.  
  
I didn't want a lie.  
  
"She was evil."  
  
That isn't what I wanted to hear.  
  
"She did some awful things. She was killed."  
  
To become a vampire you must die.  
  
"Turned."  
  
Wrong again.  
  
"Staked twice."  
  
I didn't even try to figure that one out.  
  
"By who?"  
  
"Your father both times."  
  
That was something else I didn't want to hear. My parents didn't get along on an epic scale and they're dead, something every child wishes to learn about their heritage. From where I was sitting looking at my face, I think this story is completely implausible.  
  
But she would never lie to me.  
  
I had to keep this cadence going or else I would never start again. She wasn't sugar coating it and it hurt. It would hurt more to stop.  
  
"Did they love each other."  
  
I had to know that I wasn't a cast off.  
  
"In a weird way yes."  
  
"Did they love me?"  
  
"I know that she did. Her bad points were her maniacal love of pain and agony, her glee over being a vampire. Her good points only existed because of you, she died finally because she would give it all for you. You gave her a soul and when she had that soul she loved you."  
  
I turned and looked up at her she was sitting and looking at me.  
  
"How do you know all of this?"  
  
"I'm a snoop. Now finish."  
  
"I don't want to know. He's evil, didn't you ever learn not to take candy from strange men?"  
  
"He's not a man."  
  
"Great," I mumbled.  
  
She got up and pulled me back to bed.  
  
"He's evil and he's good and he doesn't know how to be either one. He doesn't know who he is or what to be anymore then we do. He has a soul."  
  
She sensed I wasn't ready and she let it go.  
  
"He doesn't matter, nothing matters but us right now."  
  
I let her pull me into her arms. I let her.  
  
My evil parents didn't matter. The complete abyss of my past didn't phase me. The demons outside of my door didn't call to me.  
  
I wasn't alone.  
  
I knew then in that moment. I knew who I was.  
  
I was a child who had grown up alone, stranded and forced. I was child of a man who lived on the edge of humanity and on the edge of demonics. I was a creature of no anchor.  
  
I didn't know once if I could feel.  
  
I know I can.  
  
I hold her tight.  
  
***  
  
I went out that night, imbibed with the thought that she was there when I got back.  
  
I flexed my muscles and I felt who I was flow into me. I knew. I defined it.  
  
I was walking through vampire dust when I felt the feeling. I looked up. In the shadows of the rooftops I saw a flash.  
  
Yeah, I'll never be alone.  
  
***  
  
We're sitting on a stretch of grass. It is getting warmer. I don't like the sun, but she does. She likes the sunglasses and reading outside. It is the college thing to do.  
  
"So what does he do now?" I ask, completely not wanting to read about another war in Europe. That is all they do and it isn't even the fun stuff, just politics. I think that if I live to be a hundred then I'll never understand politics.  
  
"Ummm," she says finishing a paragraph, "He is the CEO of some law firm."  
  
I had to think about that one. I'm usually wrong, but she never makes me feel stupid for being wrong, "He's a lawyer?"  
  
She giggled, I like making her giggle.  
  
"They don't really let vampires be lawyers, especially those with souls."  
  
"Then what does he do?"  
  
I roll to my stomach and watch her chew her lip.  
  
"I don't know. He rules LA I think. The firm used to be evil, but then he took over."  
  
"So now my evil father runs an evil law firm."  
  
She took off her glasses and looked down at me. Her eyes were serious and I knew that I had done something wrong.  
  
"You need to stop with the whole evil thing. There are so many shades. Nothing is ever clear-cut. I knew this vampire once who was very evil, but he loved, he loved a lot. How can a creature who loves be truly evil."  
  
"Maybe he loved in an evil way."  
  
It wasn't even out of my mouth and I knew that it was the stupidest thing that I had ever said.  
  
"You just sound ignorant when you say that. He loved one woman enough to get a soul. His love was that pure, he wanted to be a better creature."  
  
I looked puzzled I'm sure because she answered my question right away.  
  
"No it wasn't your father."  
  
Another vampire with a soul. How strange. That is when I suddenly had another thought.  
  
"Did he get the soul for your sister?"  
  
She nodded and I felt a little proud. I was finally getting better at deductions.  
  
"Wow, what is it with your sister and vampires with souls? Does she lead vampires to see the errors of their ways?"  
  
Now I was just trying to be silly. I love her reaction when she hears things like that. She's really priceless and beautiful. I just love how everything she thinks is reflected in her face. It is so untainted.  
  
"Buffy is not a cult."  
  
She thought for a moment.  
  
"You know I have seen everyone I know be evil for a bit. All of my sister's friends have gone over to the dark side."  
  
Then she proceeds to tell me about some pretty weird stuff. The best was a hyena that took over one of her sister's friend's bodies. I couldn't stop laughing. There was an eating of a live pig. Then she told me about her sister nearly loosing her soul. There was something about her freshman roommate at college trying to steal her soul. I was in a fit that the queen of souled vampires very nearly lost her own soul.  
  
Then she almost had me in tears telling about the witch going bad. I just wanted to hold her.  
  
She's telling me about how these supposedly evil creatures did some really good things and I'm listening. I don't care if I'm laughing or crying. It just feels good to be in the sunlight and really feel.  
  
***  
  
She is cautious later that night when she broaches the subject of love.  
  
She talks about in the most general of terms. She is gentle and for that I'm grateful.  
  
We start to talk about unconditional love.  
  
"Its weird, unconditional love is something that doesn't have to be reciprocated. It just is. I've seen it so many times. Remember the witch who went bad? Well her friend, the hyena went to save her. He went up there and no matter the flaying of skin he loved her."  
  
Then her eyes teared up and I pulled her close to me.  
  
"My sister died for me. Just after she found out that I wasn't real, I was just made up, she died for me. She was my big sister and she died to protect me. I was supposed to do it, but she did it for me. I never gave her anything, the only reason that she had to save me was because I was flesh of her flesh. That was enough."  
  
I held her near. I knew then why I didn't remember.  
  
"That was what he did," I whispered, this was the answer to my questions, "You said I buried him alive in the ocean and I was from a hell dimension, but the reason that I don't remember is because he wanted me to be more than that. I am his blood and he would do anything for me, no matter my crimes against him or humanity."  
  
She snorted and said, "Yeah Angel's big on the wanting to give others a normal life."  
  
But I barely heard her.  
  
The memories that had cost him dearly had begun to corrode the moment that I met her. I pushed them away and prayed for ignorance. I knew that if I remembered I would feel hollow and empty.  
  
I didn't even notice that over the last few months that I had become filled.  
  
Her smile, her laugh, the way that she looked at me, I knew she loved me. I knew with out a doubt if she left tomorrow I would feel it. It would reverberate through out my body. I would feel, good or bad I could feel.  
  
I needed to remember though. In order to be whole I had to remember. I knew faintly that those memories would be painful and ugly and horrible.  
  
I held her hand and I traced the contours, the lines of her palm that held her life. somewhere in those lines I knew I existed.  
  
I look into her face and I know. I know that I am not from this place, but her power, the power of the key has unlocked the freeze on my emotions. She has given me what no one else could, a reason.  
  
I ask her the hardest thing that I can.  
  
"Will you go to him, will you ask him to let me remember."  
  
***  
  
//They chased me. The skin on my back was gone. I hadn't slept for days, I hadn't eaten for longer than that. this was the definition of agony. This was a normal day, from the moment I had learned to use them I had been running. To survive I had to ignore the pain and keep running//  
  
I think I'm crying. I don't know.  
  
He's there.  
  
"I'm sorry. I wouldn't wish this on anyone," he says.  
  
//I wake up tied to a tree again. The Pilah bugs are beginning to burrow under my toenails. I'm almost free. I can feel the slickness of the blood flowing down my hands, but it doesn't matter. I am almost free. Its my fourth birthday, I am determined to find him faster than ever.//  
  
I'm pounding the walls. He grabs my wrists.  
  
I fight him, but while the memories are tearing me apart, he won't let me tear myself apart.  
  
//It's raining. I haven't been dry for weeks and my skin is beginning to become all spongy. I'm afraid that if I touch it it will come off under my nails. I have been swimming for a day now, looking for some place to stop. There is nothing but rain//  
  
I look over at her. She looks at me solidly, even though I must seem like a dirty animal to her. I feel dirty.  
  
"The things you see are not pretty, I wanted so much better for you," he says in my ear.  
  
I look at him, and I can hardly see him. he had a soul returned and felt all that he had done willingly was wrong. He was tortured by his actions. I'm my father's son. I'm just as tortured. I see the childhood that no one should ever have to endure, by anyone's standards. It just wasn't my choice, it was the fate of being his son.  
  
I was tortured for being his son.  
  
I hated him.  
  
//The Mryaka was circling overhead. It had found our home. Luckily the temperature was over ninety, like usual. I could hide, it couldn't tell me from my surroundings. I had been standing still since sunrise and the sun was setting. If it didn't leave soon I was going to freeze in my own sweat//  
  
"You loved this little pink elephant."  
  
He's talking about pink when I feel like this? All I can see is blood.  
  
"You wouldn't ever sleep with out it, but you wouldn't cry. You would just wait up until we got that little pink elephant."  
  
I can't even remember what an elephant is. He keeps talking in that monotone voice and I want to kill him.  
  
Then through all of the memories of all the demons and harsh weather conditions a thought occurred to me.  
  
What if I couldn't sleep all those years because I didn't have the stupid elephant?  
  
It was completely irrational. I didn't sleep because if I had I would have died.  
  
I looked up at him. He looked very uncomfortable and uncertain, but he kept talking.  
  
I looked at her sitting across the room. I needed her right now. She had told me all that she had seen of my father's mood swings when it came to his soul. She told me everything to be expected. She asked me if I was sure, if I wanted to know.  
  
I had told her that I couldn't go on living and not know.  
  
She looked at me and all the times that the sun had burned my skin, it only took this one time for me to realize that sometimes the early morning light could be sweet.  
  
I looked at him.  
  
I had been a pretty miserable son, to put it light, but he sat here talking to me. He was giving me everything that he could remember of a little child that he had held for a few days.  
  
Because I was that child he loved me. Because I had lived inside of her dead body my mother had loved me. No wrong that I had ever or could ever do would change their love. he would never stop watching me from roof tops and he would always be proud.  
  
Suddenly everything that was in my head I knew that he would admire me for. He would admire my strength and perseverance.  
  
Suddenly the agony didn't kill me anymore. Suddenly everything lessened.  
  
I laid back against the wall and listened to my father give me everything good that he could, every story that meant anything, just so that I didn't have to remember alone.  
  
She came to me and sat in my arms.  
  
Calm.  
  
His voice.  
  
Her weight.  
  
I felt it all this time, my entire lifetime. It hurt, but those moments with her, these moments now, the way she described unconditional love.  
  
I breathed. I remembered all of who I was.  
  
I remembered and I wasn't empty any more.  
  
The End 


End file.
